(Original post by RivalPlayer)
I'm starting to believe that England isn't a good place to settle and have a family. I just don't see anything positive about the direction England seems to be heading in. We've got a buckling NHS, nurses leaving the NHS, doctors leaving the country, teacher recruitment crisis, problems with end-of-life care, an increasingly socially fragmented growing population and a lack of affordable housing.
We're constantly being told that we're a secular country yet no one ever talks about the growth of Islam which comes with its own issues in terms cultural changes and integration. And then there's Europe's migrant crisis which will likely worsen as conflicts unfold and the effects of global warming become more apparent. It is inevitable that Europe will cop the side effects of these emerging problems in a big way.

All of this stuff concerns me and in recent months, I've really started to think that England won't be the place to be if you plan on settling down, having a family and leading a good life. I think the ordinary citizen of the future will be living in a very fragmented society with low levels of social cohesion and will face a far poorer quality of life than they would today. I think Islam will also have a far greater presence than what we're used to now and that will create further division and friction in society. They'll be more non-diverse enclaves established with places like Newham / Tower Hamlets existing in far greater numbers. We'll see greater pressure placed on services and resources, but we'll accept it as a consequence of diversity because of our infamous tolerance.

The future doesn't look bright from where I'm sitting. Maybe I'm just overblowing it or perhaps you can relate.

How do you feel about the future of England?

Yes I feel similar but my solution is to move out of the city and into a market town where if you pick well many of those issues are lessened a lot.

(Original post by RivalPlayer)
I'm starting to believe that England isn't a good place to settle and have a family. I just don't see anything positive about the direction England seems to be heading in. We've got a buckling NHS, nurses leaving the NHS, doctors leaving the country, teacher recruitment crisis, problems with end-of-life care, an increasingly socially fragmented growing population and a lack of affordable housing.
We're constantly being told that we're a secular country yet no one ever talks about the growth of Islam which comes with its own issues in terms cultural changes and integration. And then there's Europe's migrant crisis which will likely worsen as conflicts unfold and the effects of global warming become more apparent. It is inevitable that Europe will cop the side effects of these emerging problems in a big way.

All of this stuff concerns me and in recent months, I've really started to think that England won't be the place to be if you plan on settling down, having a family and leading a good life. I think the ordinary citizen of the future will be living in a very fragmented society with low levels of social cohesion and will face a far poorer quality of life than they would today. I think Islam will also have a far greater presence than what we're used to now and that will create further division and friction in society. They'll be more non-diverse enclaves established with places like Newham / Tower Hamlets existing in far greater numbers. We'll see greater pressure placed on services and resources, but we'll accept it as a consequence of diversity because of our infamous tolerance.

The future doesn't look bright from where I'm sitting. Maybe I'm just overblowing it or perhaps you can relate.

How do you feel about the future of England?

I thought it was **** 15 years ago which is why I left the country. Can't ever see me coming back.

Political correctness was what got many, many people on this forum banned for merely questioning the policy decisions linked to immigration/migration such as the one made by my Chancellor to allow all these migrants into my country

without checking if they are holding genuine passports

without checking if they have links to terrorist groups

without checking if they have criminal records in their home countries

without checking if they have HIV/AIDS

you may have read or heard, many of these migrants have turned my country upside down. I hope all of you reading my post, bears this in mind. A country's sovereignty, security and safety of its citizens is so so important. With Merkel's blunder, we have become a carbon copy of UK & the rest of EU and their set of problems.

Merkel has been in hiding for many days now. She's pushing 62 years of age. She won't throw in the towel just yet. If UK decides to remain in the EU, I am certain they will make EU into a united states of Europe and she would be the major contender for the post of PM of the USE. Tony Blair has quietened down way too much to be able to stake a claim for that coveted position.

She studied physics and then chemistry. She has no knowledge and understanding about politics, law, finance and sociology. She tells the German public one thing and tells the EU another thing and then tells the world another thing. Yesterday she said that refugees must now return back to their countries of origin after the wars back home have ended.http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu...-idUSKCN0V80IH

Your beloved BBC will never report such things and many other similar things because it is part of 'The State'.

The problem in UK is that if your great-grandfather was a Tory, chances are your grandfather and your father was a Tory too. That was fine because politicians of the past truly cared for the citizens. After Thatcher was betrayed by her own party members, the next batch of politicians onwards till today have always been about lining up their own pockets and filling up their boots.

First of all, you have a weak British government led by a Prime Minister who is clueless. He claims that he will get a good deal for UK insofar as her membership of the EU goes but at the same time, he knows that the best deal is to be able to control your own borders and decide who can come and live in the UK, subject to
1) checking if they are holding genuine passports
2) checking if they have links to terrorist groups
3) checking if they have criminal records in their home countries
4) checking if they have the necessary educational qualifications or skill set
5) checking if they have HIV/AIDS

Someone recently asked me why should people wanting to enter into another country, be checked for HIV/AIDS? This is because the government owes a duty to its citizens to protect them from people who may want to infect others with their communicable diseases. This is an extension of a 'social contract theory'. Read up on it if you have time.

You also then have Prime Minister's Question Time where it is a constant ruckus. The rationale behind the televised coverage is to update the citizens on whats been happening or for them to see their MPs actually stand up and voice out the constituents problems. But it's turned into a very bad weekly comedy show.http://www.theguardian.com/politics/...-party-leaders

If that is not enough, you have a police commissioner who seems to only come out with a standard response every time something goes wrong. After awhile, all is forgotten and everything is back to square one. Btw, have you checked out his new ride?http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-cuts-row.html

Also, some of these Police and Crime Commissioners have paid and are continuing to pay huge salaries to their family members and friends on their staff and paying for other unnecessary things. On the topic of Police and Crime Commissioners, my favourite has to be Ann Barnes, the PCC of Kent. Words cannot describe her incompetence. You'll just have to watch this for yourself.

And all this wastage of money while reducing the number of police officers and cutting their salaries!?!?

This, coupled with open borders make UK a very unsafe place. Why, you may ask? How are you able to detect the bad guys when you allow practically anyone to enter into your country and at the same time, expect the police to do their job when front-line staff are being stretched due to cuts in their numbers?

Also, why are you allowing tens of thousands of unskilled, uneducated people from Pakistan, Bangladesh and a few other countries to relocate to UK, live off benefits, create enclaves, do not want to integrate with other communities and then top it all off by giving them citizenships soon after?

Why do this when your immigration policy, at the very same time, inadvertently dictates that you discriminate against a doctor from New Zealand, a lawyer from Canada etc? I could go on but I think I've made my point and that is this. To borrow a famous Chinese saying, If the upper beam is not straight, the lower beam will be crooked.

In order for UK to return to its former status, you must

have an intelligent PM (someone like Margaret Thatcher) and assisted by capable Cabinet Ministers.

leave the EU, reclaim control of your borders and decide independently who can work and live in the UK

channel money into your front line forces such as the police, doctors, nurses and teachers

with tightened and controlled borders, the police should comb each city, check people if they have valid papers or deport them immediately if they don't. Suspicious people with link to terror groups must be detained, investigated, charged and then imprisoned indefinitely

be brave to launch police investigations into terror groups, regardless if they operate in the churches, temples, mosques or at the playgrounds. Hiding behind political correctness is a cowardly thing to do.

repair the reputation of the police force so that men in blue will regain the trust of the citizens

If these steps are followed, UK will not only a safe country but also a great country once again.

At the moment I'm most worried about the fact that our generation will become that one that doesn't get to retire. That is just making me want to quit while I'm ahead and emigrate to a country that actually has things going for it.

If I could afford would much rather retire in a log cabin in Alaska, where I could be semi self-sufficient and enjoy my twilight years, than sit in blighty pushing a pen or lifting crates until I succumb to heart disease.

I never really had the same feelings, until I left England... but now, looking back, its hard to rationalize returning.

I currently live in china, which does have its problems, and due to still being a developing country, certainly lacks a lot of the luxury that england has, outside of major city centers.. but, most importantly it ticks off the essential boxes of my life:

Here I can:

- Easily secure stable work, that pays a very decent wage.
- Live a decent quality of life on around 25% of my monthly income.
- Buy a flat (no mortgage) in less then 2-3 years.
- afford a decent car, and to pay for transport.

Compared to my friends back in the UK, life here just makes a lot of sense.

I look back at england and I just see problems, especially for young people:

- Housing that would cost me 5-6x my yearly sallery (in my families area of the UK)
- Ridiculous cost of living, that would reduce my ability to save/have a relaxing financially independent life
- a population thats to busy fighting and arguing then actually getting things done
- Jobs that require a stupid amount of red-tape, lengthy application processes, and in the end are not very secure/reliable.
- A fractured society that does not know what it wants to be, with an increasingly unhappy native population.
(more on that last point spoiled bellow due to length, and lack of relivance)

Spoiler:

Show

My wife is not english. She came here to do a masters at a london university, and honestly for the first few months in England she was completely disappointed. In her country england still has a great reputaton, but when she arrived and spent a few months in london, to her it did not feel english at all (aside from the center). - it wasnt until she met me, and I took her away from the major cities, out into the small towns around my home, that she really saw the country that she believed england to be.. and that does worry me.

For my family, and many others its a problem that often does not seem to affect us. We live in small towns where life still feels very traditional. county fairs, vegetable contest, primary school carnivals, Victorian fairs at Christmas, church fates, strong local communities, and (dare I say it) a still 95%+ white English population. for us, life still resembles older English life, and what other countries perceive English life/values to be.. but in reality this bares little to no resemblance of how the vast vast majority of english people live. Before coming to china, I lived in london and liverpool, and both really concern me.

Not because the idea of many cultures living together is bad.. just because I did not really see it. I saw many cultures living largely interdependently from each other, and very rarely intergrating.

Even in the chinese community, one that is largely ignored by the anti-immigration bunch, there was often no integration with white english people. Through my wife I started to spend time with chinese communities, and often I became the only white friend they had, and the only time they would routinely speak English outside of work/shopping/necessity.

This is certianly not completly the fault of the minority groups within the UK, but for me is a problem which innately exists in us as humans. We like to identify with groups, be part of something bigger then ourselves, it makes us feel safe/secure/wanted. For some people these are groups of people our age, or who go the same school/uni, who have the same political ideas, who like the same music etc. - but for a lot of people its also those who are the same race/ethnicity/background as us. Sure for some this is not an issue, but for many, even though they cant quite explain why.. they just feel an underlying comfort with the idea of living and existing with a majority having the same culture/race/religion/background.

I dont personally think that feeling will ever go away, and despite our best attempts at full integration, we will still find ourselves living in a fractured society, that devides itself by race.. for a long time.

For me, living away from england feels good.. last year with the terror attacks in france, the crisis in europe, and now the fighting over in/out of the EU - I can watch it from a distance, and be glad im not fully involved.

China has its own problems though, I would never start a family here.. due to the way they treat children, and its to built up/dependent on large cities, for a countryside person like myself.

If you removed my family back in england from the equasion, I would try and settle in probably New Zealand, or Canada.

But all things considered, I could never have my grandchildren away from my family.. so despite all of its problems, I am tied to england, and will return soon enough to make the best out of what ever the future holds for this/my country.